WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 777 - John Larroquette
Episode Date: January 15, 2017John Larroquette knows that people still identify him most strongly with Night Court, and he's okay with that. John believes things would have been different if he hadn't made his character, Dan Field...ing, endearing beneath his cynical exterior. John and Marc talk about booze, recovery, sobriety, Stripes, The Librarians, and the one job that was so intense, John forgot his wife's birthday for the only time in 40 years. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Death is in our air.
This year's most anticipated series,
FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.
We live and we die.
We control nothing beyond that.
An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel
by James Clavel.
To show your true heart is to risk your life.
When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive.
FX's Shogun, a new original series
streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+.
18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.
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Lock the gates!
Alright, let's do this.
How are you, what the fuckers?
What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears?
What the fucknics?
What's happening?
I'm Mark Maron, this is my podcast, WTF, welcome to it.
If you're new, hang out, have a seat, you'll get the hang of it, you don't have to say
anything.
Well, you know what, actually you can, you can talk during it, you can do whatever you
want during this podcast because I have no control over that. And if that's what feels good, when you're engaging with it, occasionally go, oh, Mark,
shut up.
Shut up, Marin.
You can do that.
You know why?
Because I can't hear it.
I cannot hear it.
Today on the show, to me, an interesting guest because I get opportunities to talk to people
and I would never think I would have the opportunity to talk to them or necessarily think of it. But John Larroquette is on the show today.
He's currently on a TNT series called The Librarians, but most of us knew him from
Night Court and from his law. That show was on forever. And he, for years was the quintessential cranky, cynical, funny guy, a very funny, smart dude,
you know, and he was around.
It's just one of those things where it's like, I know he's been working for a long time,
but, uh, I, I wouldn't have thought to say we got to get John Larroquette on the show,
but I was happy to talk to him.
And I know his kid.
Some of you know, his kid, Jonathan Larroquette on the show, but I was happy to talk to him. And I know his kid. Some of you know his kid, Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli are the hosts of the show,
the podcast.
Oh, yeah, dude.
And they were in here.
But I see Jonathan Larroquette down at Future Music all the time because now that I'm not
shooting a show and the transition into the new year, I'm out and about wandering around
with my notebook and my desire to not nap too much.
So I'm in Future Music a lot.
It's right next to Permanent Records down the street there.
And I see Jonathan all the time.
And then when I told him I was going to have his dad on,
he was like, great, that should be good.
I got a little prep from him.
I got a little prep from him i got a little a little bit of insight but um
but john larroquette came over later in the afternoon and we had this uh interesting chat
so that's gonna happen in a few minutes how's everybody my show marin from the ifc network
the fourth and final season is now on netflix the U.S. I know that for sure.
And people are digging it.
It's really kind of an amazing thing, this Netflix business.
Yeah, amazing.
This Netflix, that whole idea really took off, didn't it?
Man, I wish I had thought of Netflix.
But no, because like so many people don't get IFC
or they don't watch it on IFC or they don't know IFC exists or whatever it is.
When the seasons are released on Netflix, it gets an entirely whole new surge of people watching it because they can watch all of it at once.
And I'll tell you, honestly, I'm very proud of that last season.
And it was very challenging emotionally and very funny and certainly the darkest season
we did but it's up there it's up there for you to enjoy and binge and go at it however you want
I'm just happy it's out there the tour is coming up my first date is January 24th I will be at this
is the two real tour yeah I thought you know you just to name these things. I'll be in Tallahassee, Florida
January 24th at
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall.
And then I pick up again in
February at the Carolina
Theater, February 17th in Durham.
I'm at the Knight Theater in Charlotte
February 18th. I'm at the
Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, Connecticut
March 2nd. The Music Hall
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, March 3rd.
Olympia de Montreal in Montreal, Quebec, March 4th.
Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, Ontario, March 5th.
That one sold out, I think.
College Street Music Hall, March 10th in New Haven.
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, New York, March 11th.
Flynn Center in Burlington, Vermont. March 12th,
Fox Oakland, Oakland, California. March 24th, the Moore Theater in Seattle, Washington. March 25th,
I'm at the Vogue in Vancouver. March 26th, I'm at the Paramount in Austin. March 31st,
Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado. April 7th, the Paramount in Denver. April 8th, the Aladdin,
April 7th. The Paramount in Denver, April 8th. The Aladdin, April 21st in Portland. And the Aladdin again, April 22nd in Portland. I'll be at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, April 27th.
The Orpheum in Madison, Wisconsin, April 28th. Pantages in Minneapolis, April 29th for two shows.
We're going to be shooting a special. And then I'm at the Miriam Theater in Philly,
May 12th, and at the Warner Theater in D.C.,
May 13th.
That's the tour.
And that might be it for a while.
I got an email from a guy.
And this has to do with ego and insecurity,
being full of grudges,
and wanting revenge or a payback,
that kind of thing.
You know,
we all have it in us.
There's part of your brain that's sort of like,
you know,
I'll show them.
It's bizarre because I got this email and this is a minor thing,
but,
uh,
but I'll share it with you.
Uh,
in the subject line,
it says 40 years ago.
Hey, Mark, I know it's been about 40 years since I hung out at your house in Albuquerque when we were at Sandia Prep, but I
wanted to reconnect. Love your work, your excellence of being you, smart, kind, thoughtful, and loving.
I just discovered the world of podcasts on January 1st, and there you were with Fresh Air and Malcolm
Gladwell. Your John Prine and Lin-Manuel
Miranda encounters touched my core. Anyway, I hope this shot in the dark gets you interested.
I've been working in positive youth development with on the edge youth and families for 30 years
now and would like to send an arrow in your direction. Love rules, my brother, Ted. Now,
I know this guy, I know Ted and I was good friends with his brother, Mark. I know
them from when I was younger. Ted was older than me, but this is interesting. This guy seems like
he's doing amazing work. He sounds like a grounded guy, hearts in the right place, doing socially
proactive work out there in the world, making a difference for kids and families. I don't know the details of it, but it's inspiring.
And here's the odd thing
is that I remember Ted,
but what I remember is that
when I was in probably seventh grade,
maybe eighth grade,
what I remember,
and this is me,
this is hypersensitive,
kind of self-involved Mark,
eighth grade Mark mark i was in
love as much in love as an eighth grader could be with this girl jessica who was older than me
i just was obsessed and had this huge crush on her and she knew it and it was cute to her but
it's very serious to me as that happens.
You know, she was, I'm sure like, well, that's cute.
The eighth grader, the chubby eighth grader who seems very sensitive as a
crush.
I mean, she was nice to me, but I don't know what I was expecting really.
But Ted who wrote this email, she was Ted's girlfriend, but I didn't really
let that stop me.
And I think I, I feel like i had the crush before
they started going out but stop me from what i'll tell you what i wrote a song my first song and i
was playing in a a band kind of it was me and eric tipman and deanines. And I can't remember who played bass.
But I wrote a song called Jessica for Jessica.
Nothing like the Allman Brothers song.
And looking back on it,
I think it had the chords that were roughly like It Don't Come Easy by Ringo Starr.
Looking back on it, I think those were similar chords.
But it had a build at the end and a jam.
But none of us could really play and I couldn't really sing, but there was a talent assembly at school and, you know, word was out. It was a small school that, you know, I was going
to play this song, this love song for Jessica. And, you know, I just wanted to play this song
and, you know, I, I had no confidence in singing. So Eric sang it.
It wasn't even me singing, but I wrote the song for Jessica.
And she was going to be there.
And we did it.
We did it.
We did that song.
And it was good.
It was in a gym.
People sitting on the floor.
The point being, my memory of Ted, other than knowing him and being friends with his brother,
was after that assembly, after I played this song to and for his girlfriend, declaring my love.
He came up to me and gave me a good punch in the stomach.
And looking back on it, not unreasonable.
I'm not a violence guy and I didn't fight back or anything. In retrospect, I had it coming.
But I think part of my brain was demonizing him for taking that action.
And now I read this email.
And now for 30 years, he's been doing nothing but great things.
And I wonder if he remembers that.
I'm going to reconnect with him and find out more.
But I'm not to reconnect with him and, uh, and then find out more, but I, like, I'm not,
I'm not upset about it, but it's, I guess with grudges and resentments and hurt feelings
and all this other stuff, you, you, you know, you, you forget that, you know, people, you
know, they grow and they move on and, and, uh, you should too, that, that was all I remembered
about him.
And then out of nowhere, I get this beautiful email from the guy who's been doing great
work.
And I'm like, yeah, you're the guy that punched me in the
stomach
I had it coming alright so
Ted if you're listening let's regroup
I'm over it now
are you? I hope you are
I think you are
okay one more thing
I think it's interesting what
can happen and what you know ripples
occur when I talk out loud.
As you know, we've gone through this together, if you do listen to me in these portions of the show, with the knife injury, the flap.
It seems that the flap, it didn't quite, it kind of took, but it seemed like most of it was just protecting the area where I didn't cut all the way through to the, uh, the, uh, all the way
through the skin. But the very tip part where I did cut all the way through that seems to be taking,
but the rest kind of peeled off like a dry blister. And now it's just red and sensitive,
but I'm able to play guitar. Thank God. Right. You're all like wondering when's that going to
pick back up. But the point I'm making is that because I talked about cutting that tip of my finger off, I got a couple of weird things.
Not weird, but it's just interesting what comes in.
Like, I got this email that just says knife gift.
It says, Mark, here you go, dot, dot, dot.
And for some reason it says number eight.
I don't know where he got this, but it's number eight of something.
Some knife owners believe that you
never truly own a knife unless it has bitten you tasted your blood once a knife has taken its owner's
blood the owner will never sell or trade that knife with anyone a similar superstition states
that a knife that has bitten its owner will stay sharp longer and is less likely to accidentally
cut its owner. Thank you.
I think his name's Kevin, but he didn't sign off on it.
Just this weird little bit of information that's number eight of something.
And then I love this because of the story I told about cutting my finger.
Someone on Twitter sent me a link to a Sylvia Plath poem called Cut.
And, you know, I would not have read this.
I would not have known about it.
But what's amazing is that, you know, I can talk about this and nauseate some of you
with my flap story.
But at some point, this genius Sylvia Plath,
this poet, cut her finger and wrote this.
And I will read it to you
because occasionally poetry happens here.
Cut by Sylvia Plath for Susan O'Neill Rowe.
What a thrill, my thumb instead of an onion,
the top quite gone except for sort of a hinge of skin,
a flap like a hat, dead white, then that red plush,
little pilgrim, the Indians axed your scalp your turkey waddle
carpet rolls straight from the heart i step on it clutching my bottle of pink fizz a celebration
this is out of a gap a million soldiers run redcoats everyone whose side are they on? Oh my, homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to kill the thin papery feeling. Saboteur, kamikaze man. The stain on your gauze, kuklutz clan. Babushka darkens and tarnishes. And when the bald pulp of your heart confronts its small mill of silence, how you trepidant veteran dirty girl thump stump
uh right now i'm going to talk to uh john larroquette he's uh currently on the tnt
series the librarians uh the season finale is next sunday january 22nd and uh we had a lovely chat. Death is in our air.
This year's most anticipated series,
FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.
We live and we die.
We control nothing beyond that.
An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel
by James Clavel.
To show your true heart is to risk your life.
When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive.
FX's Shogun,
a new original series
streaming February 27th
exclusively on Disney+.
18 plus subscription required.
T's and C's apply.
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Take a closer look how at Calgary economic development dot com.
That. at calgary economic development dot com so you don't come out to this part of town much just to see jonathan occasionally at the shop um i don't i don't know this area well at all so you go to the shop you go over to future music i
have yes yeah as a regular
for sure yeah it's a classic place it is that yeah it's one of these places now that i've had
a little time off i go back to an old habit i used to have when i was younger you just go and you
jump into a conversation for a little while and then you move on to the next store that's that's
how it works i'll go next door to the record store and do that and how long have you been in this house 2006 okay so is that right
2000 no 2004 oh wow yeah so i've been up here for a long time so you've had a long and busy career
as an entertainer yeah and an actor an actor more more precisely an actor i think entertainment is
i guess subjective you're stuck in the mind from the Night Court years.
Everybody knew that character, knew you,
but you've certainly been around before that.
A little bit, yes.
I mean, not anything really nationally recognizable.
But little bits?
Yeah, for sure.
Like if you were to go back after Night Court,
you'd be like, oh, shit, there's John Larroquette right there.
And probably the thing that was the most public was like three years before, three years?
Two years before Night Court.
Yeah.
Stripes.
I did the movie Stripes.
That's right.
You were like the second to Warren Oates, right?
Yeah, I was his commanding officer, Captain Stillman, the incompetent, bombastic, vacuous
commander in chief, as it were.
And working with Warren Oates at that age.
Working with Warren Oates.
That must have been interesting.
It was indeed.
Yeah?
It was indeed.
He and I didn't have that much to do together.
Yeah.
But I'd grown up watching him in the movies as a boy in New Orleans.
And I loved him.
I thought he was a real actor.
Yeah. And everybody else in the cast were great.
They were fine.
But they're comedians.
They were John Candy, who I only met these guys in the movie we became friends afterwards
yeah john deal yeah um became long fast friends and did plays together after that and i hired him
for other parts and the la roquette show and other things we had done together but to hang around
warren o's he was you know no nonsense and yeah he wasn't working he got on a plane and went home
that was it back that was it it's weird when you learn that about acting yeah i i've done some lately in the last few years and
all my illusions of the the tremendous community and unity and everyone being pals were sort of
not broken but it's just it's a job for a lot of people and they're pros and they come in they do
their job and then they leave yes i think on a series it gets maybe a little more personal
because you're particularly a long-running one an ensemble yeah everybody's you're like a family but then again when you're
with a bunch of people five days a week uh like we did on on night court i mean you don't really
i was never that close to any of them off camera we spent time together we ate together and stuff
we do but we don't hang out we didn't hang out right it's probably better that way i did radio
for years.
I was there a couple years
and I had a guy I worked with every morning
for four hours, three hours.
And we never did anything off the air.
We were on the air
and then it was like,
all right, see you tomorrow.
And you would think we were best friends.
Right.
The illusion.
I think, I mean,
I couldn't speak to it completely effortlessly,
but I think Jonathan andh are a bit that way
they're very intimate when they're on the yeah but they don't i don't think they spend a lot of
time socially together seth will occasionally depending upon the holiday uh thanksgiving or
something if he's an orphan in town if his mother's not here or he's not gone back to austin is here
he'll come to our house with jonathan and have holidays with us well they're sort of very different type of people i think it couldn't
be more of a a complete uh opposite vibe to the the two of them it works obviously works yeah
there's this uh yeah jonathan's the kind of all over the place guy and then you got the little
tight guy yeah yeah it's sort of like it's sort of like linus and schroeder right no yeah exactly
you know very um organized seth is very and it's it's good that he Linus and Schroeder. Right. Yeah, exactly. Very organized.
Seth is very organized.
And it's good that he is
because he brings so much material to Jonathan every week
that Jonathan can then riff on.
They can both riff on it,
but left to his devices,
Jonathan would show up and decide,
what are we going to talk about today?
But Seth has, you know, there's a framework.
To drive it.
You need that guy.
The driver and then the reactor.
Exactly.
So New Orleans is where you come from.
Yes.
And do you feel close to it now?
No, it's interesting we're having this conversation.
Last night I was talking to who's now my oldest friend,
my oldest, oldest friend,
whom we met in the fourth grade, died a few years ago.
My second oldest friend who lives here in LA.
He and I were talking about that very thing last night
because I was wondering with him,
we talk most Sunday evenings when he comes home from work.
He owns a cheese store in Beverly Hills, the best cheese store in town.
Yeah.
Anyway, and he said, why didn't we leave?
Why did we leave New Orleans?
Why did we leave?
Because he left about the same time I did, late 60s, early 70s.
Yeah.
Come to California, try to become a star.
And I think because we didn't have deep connections.
He was actually born in Europe,
moved to New Orleans when he was like seven with his mom.
My family was not very tight.
My father was gone by the time I was two,
so I didn't really have any connection to the La Roquettes.
Dead?
At all.
Now, yes.
But then he just left?
He left.
He had another family,
had a son named John La Roquette.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
His name was John LaRocquette, my father.
Simultaneously or after?
I don't quite know that.
Oh, yeah.
I just never found out anything about them.
And you never found out anything about him?
Not a lot, no.
Huh.
I decided one day that I should go see him and learn about him.
How old were you then?
I was in my late 20s, and I was and I was in LA working on my first television series.
Yeah.
Baba Black Sheep, it was called.
Robert Conrad.
Robert Conrad.
And I was making money and I thought, you know, it's time I went to New Orleans and
see who this guy is.
Sure.
He died.
He died.
Before I could get there.
Good try though.
You know, it was.
Sort of.
The thought was there.
But you know, what's the weird thing
and this is
this story is just
it chills my spine a little bit
after the big storm Katrina
yeah
went to New Orleans
with Elizabeth my wife
first stop was the cemetery
make sure that no relatives
had popped up out of the ground
right
which can happen in New Orleans
yeah
all locked up
I climb over the walls
open the gate for Elizabeth
she comes in
and I'm looking at our family plot
which is actually the Oremus plot,
which was my mother's maiden name.
Yeah.
Everything's fine.
Everybody's still underground.
And my wife's walking around
as a New Orleans cemetery tourist.
You look at those mausoleums and stuff.
And I hear her go, oh, fuck.
And I thought she tripped or something.
She said, come here.
And I walk over 10 feet from where my mother is.
And there's a plaque on the wall.
Because in New Orleans, there are these file vaults as well as coffins where you just kind of stick into a wall.
Right, right.
You know?
Yeah.
And there's John La Roquette, my father.
Yeah.
Right there.
No idea he was buried there.
20 feet from my mother all of those years.
Wow.
I wonder if he knew um i
mean he must how far did they die did he die before yeah yeah like uh oh yeah like 20 years
before that's wild but don't but just that and so i don't uh so the connection to new orleans is is
um is slight i think now at this age in my life I don't have any relatives there that I'm close to.
But you definitely grew up there.
Born and raised.
I didn't leave until I was 20.
So the first two decades of my life, very formative.
I mean, I am a New Orleanian through and through.
A Yat, as we say locally.
Yeah.
Because the greeting is usually, hey, we're Yat.
Yeah, yeah.
We're called Yats.
High school, everything there.
What was it like then?
I mean, it's like I've been there now and i was there once before katrina but but did it infuse into you because i what i know about going there is that it's a whole different time zone uh psychologically than anywhere else i mean
you get there and you're like i'm in a different place yes i didn't know that then of course because
i thought every place was home right place was like New Orleans. But looking back on it, what were you doing?
Like, you know, what was, when you were growing up, was music important?
Did you, you know, I mean, that's what everybody sort of.
I was a musician.
Started playing when I was eight in third grade.
Which one?
Clarinet.
Uh-huh.
Because they didn't have accordion in the band, which is what I wanted to play.
I don't know why.
But they didn't.
So I literally closed my eyes and pointed to the chart of instruments, and it came up
clarinet.
Clarinet's in Dixieland jazz, though, if you want.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, it's been part of it.
Completely.
Yeah.
And years later, I worked for a short time for Decker Records, and Pete Fountain was
one of the artists.
And I used to go to Pete's club on Bourbon Street and sit with Pete Fountain when I was
like 16 years old.
So you had chops.
No, I didn't.
No.
No.
with Pete Font when I was like 16 years old.
So you had chops?
No, I didn't.
No.
No.
As I euphemistically say, around 17 or 18,
I realized I could talk better than I could blow.
So I took the reeds out.
And also in the 60s, clarinet wasn't cool,
so I started playing tenor sax in my rock and roll band.
Sure, yeah.
What was that called?
The Noodles.
Oh, yeah?
The Noodles.
Let's not even talk about that.
Doing covers? Yes, absolutely, yeah. And I. Let's not even talk about that. Doing covers?
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
And I had a couple of solos.
I did Taxman by the Beatles and something else.
I don't know.
Maybe Hoss of the Rising Sun.
Sure. We played around clubs in New Orleans.
It was a big band because there were three horns.
There was a bass, drums.
So it was like eight of us.
Yeah, yeah.
Was that the only band you were in?
Only one.
How old were you? Like 16, 17? Yeah, 16, 17. Never cut a record?
Not in high school, never. There might be some tapes. Another fellow that was in the band I
occasionally speak with, he lives in Florida now, and he still plays with friends and stuff around
on the weekends. But I don't know if there's anything that exists. So you didn't walk into
music for a life?
I wasn't good enough.
I really didn't think I was good.
I was a really good reader.
Yeah.
I could cold read really well.
But I never thought I had that. I was never going to be Pete Fountain or Ackerblick or any of those guys.
Yeah.
I didn't have that sort of abstract grab to it.
Right, right.
Like a good musician should.
Couldn't riff?
No, not very well.
Yeah.
So then what was next? Radio. Really? Just what? No, not very well. Yeah, so then what was next?
Radio. Really? Just what,
you were a jock? Yeah, for a long time.
What kind of music? At first, the first
job I had was at a classical radio station
in New Orleans owned by the
PBS station. Did you know anything about classical
music? No. But it was
instrumental in me losing my accent
because I didn't think saying Beethoven
was quite right. You had a real accent. I had a New Orleans accent. Matter of fact, I didn't think saying Beethoven was quite right.
You had a real accent.
I had a New Orleans accent.
Matter of fact, I don't know where it is,
but when I was about nine years old,
you know, back in those days,
there was an amusement park called Pontchartrain Beach
and you'd walk into a little booth like a photo booth,
but for a quarter, you could talk for 30 seconds
and it would spit out a little record.
Sure.
I still have it.
A voice-o-graph or something?
Yeah, that's probably exactly the right thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was sorted out a little record. Sure. I still have it. A voice-o-graph or something? Yeah, that's probably exactly the record.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was sort of just telling my grandma about how much fun I was having at the beach with Mama.
Very New Orleans accent.
And you know, I say this constantly, but it's true.
The New Orleans accent is not Southern.
It's actually closer to New Jersey than anything else.
Why?
There was a huge migration of longshoremen to New Orleans
to work on the river in the early 1900s,
and many of them from Hoboken.
Really?
So, toady-toad and toad came with them.
Really?
And it mixed with whatever patois, the French Creole patois,
was in New Orleans,
and that's why O-I's are usually pronounced like R's.
You say turlet, not toilet.
Right.
Oyster, not oyster.
Right.
Woyk. I'm going to put it on my sheet and go to Woyk. And that came in, not toilet. Oyster, not oyster. Woyk.
I'm going to put it on my sheet and go to Woyk.
And that came in from the East Coast.
Yes, it did.
But there was such a melting pot down there.
It was.
I was reading yesterday, actually.
It's very interesting,
and I would like to know more about the history of this.
There was a time when New Orleans
was sort of three distinct cities
because the Creoles, my family,
my family came to New Orleans in the mid-1700s from Paris.
Long time ago.
I've got the actual paperwork from one of the boats that Francois Larroquette came over on.
So I'm not occasioned.
We didn't come from Canada.
Came directly from France.
So by definition, a Creole.
Right.
So the French Canadians came through Canada as furriers, a lot of them.
Yes.
And were also thrown out by the Huguenots the english and made their way
down to a french colony which was new orleans right that's where they settled but not you guys
no we came directly from so what did you feel better than the other no i didn't know i didn't
know you didn't know till yesterday i didn't know a little before that but when the americans came
to new orleans yeah the the english as it were, because the river became so important
as a port. Right. That they hated the Creole section of New Orleans. So it was actually three
different cities. There was the black slave free color area, the Creoles, which was very mixed.
Yeah. I was reading also that in those days, free people of color and even slaves, horrible word, they could move very freely within the city limits of New Orleans, within the French Quarter.
Right.
And the Americans moved uptown.
And so it was very segregated in the truest sense of those three sections.
Eventually, they melted together.
Yeah.
But also it was the Americans who said no Storyville, no gambling, no prostitutes.
They closed all of that down eventually because they had the money.
But it's, you know, growing up, it was a very, I mean, I loved it.
I mean, I really did love the city.
What part of town?
The Ninth Ward.
And that was underwater, right?
Yes, indeed.
Oh, my God.
When I was, in 1965, there was a storm that came from New Orleans called Betsy and the water on my street,
because I stood in the middle of the street, was up to my collarbone.
Really?
But Katrina, the water was about, as I hold up my fingers, three inches from the very
top of the roof and stayed there for three weeks.
Right.
Sat there underwater for three weeks.
Long before that, I had moved my mother out in the 80s when I started making money.
And the house that I grew up in, which was a shotgun, the front door to the back door, you could walk in a straight line.
Yeah.
No doors on any rooms except the bathroom just for ventilation.
Right.
And I lived there from 10 years old or so
until about 17 when I moved out.
But it's still, the last time I was there, which was November,
I did a movie there, first time I ever worked in a hometown.
Which movie?
It's called Camera Store.
Just played at the Palm Springs Film Festival um little independent film but
anyway did you like doing it it was a strange experience actually Mark because I had not and
never worked in my hometown I was there for the entire month of November basically and it was
actually a very strange ickyicky, kind of depressing,
angst-ridden month.
Really?
I don't know how- Because of the movie?
I think part of it.
What was the movie about?
About a real depressed kind of guy
who had been stuck in this camera store.
It's a flashback,
not a, what do you call it,
a period piece from the 70s.
And you're the guy?
I'm the guy.
Prior to digital.
Yeah.
It's like the last legs of analog
cameras and stuff happening.
And he's just a miserable fuck.
And stays a miserable fuck the entire film.
So that probably had some
impact on how you were feeling there.
I think so, because my wife, I've
never considered myself a real actor.
I sort of say that, you know, I make
sausage. Sometimes it's delicious sausage,
but it's sausage. But I think I do get affected by the people i play somewhat right and uh so i
it was it was an unusual also that that's the first time i'd been there since my best friend
uh james who i who i nicknamed hannibal when we were like 10 years old i don't know why
but his name was hannibal as far as was concerned. We met in the fourth grade.
He had died.
Matter of fact, I found him.
You did?
Yes.
In his apartment, dead.
Weird story. Out here?
No, New Orleans.
Before you left?
No, three years ago.
I had done two Broadway plays back to back.
I'd gotten done with the second one, came back to LA.
Yeah.
My wife said, what's going on with you? You're just
and I was just. Which play were you just finishing?
The Best Man, Gore Vidal.
Okay. With James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury.
Great time. Oh my God. And before that
I did a year with Dan Wrightcliffe
with How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying. And that was a big hit, right? My first Broadway show.
You wanted Tony for that. Thank you very much.
Yeah. I'm glad you said it and I didn't have to.
I didn't give it to you, but you're welcome.
Thanks for knowing that.
But I felt really terrible and I said, I'm going to go home.
You didn't know why?
It just came over you.
I didn't know why.
Because with him also, he had no answering service.
He had no computers or anything like that.
So if he wasn't home, he wasn't home.
If he didn't want to answer the phone, he didn't answer the phone.
When you felt terrible, did you call him to tell him you were coming or what?
I tried, but I couldn't get him, which wasn't unusual.
That didn't really ring any big bells.
But you had no idea what the impulse to go home was?
None.
There was no reason to go.
Your mom was not there anymore.
No one was there.
You just felt compelled.
Felt compelled to go home, which used to happen when I drank.
I would wind up on a plane going to New Orleans.
That's another story.
Yeah.
And so I got to New Orleans and couldn couldn't raise him knock on his door couldn't
then i then i managed to get into his apartment house and when i went upstairs to the floor where
his apartment was there was a you know what a king cake is it's a confection in new orleans
during madagascar it's a big ringed piece of sugar basically that people give during madagascar
as a gift very colorful and i had sent him one and it was still leaning against the front door of his
apartment how long ago three weeks uh-huh and so i found the landlord we broke in and i found him
dead on the floor oh my god he'd been dead for about two or three weeks gross story sorry it's
all right what'd he die of who knows drinking congenital heart failure oh really sort of given
up i guess yeah yeah had you been in touch with him? Oh, all the time. I mean, we've been still close friends for, we were for 55 years or however long the hell
it was.
Well, that's some connection that you felt something.
Yeah.
And, you know, and we met at a time and I think about that relationship and the fact
that we were both sons of single mothers whose husbands had left and Catholic and, you know,
just sort of connected with each other.
We both used humor to sort of deflect the whatever pain, how ridiculous that sounds
at this point, but whatever pain we were feeling.
We wrote together a lot in the 60s, did a lot of drugs together in the 60s.
We were close.
Yeah.
Hitchhiked around together.
What was his, what did he end up doing with himself?
He, for about 30 years, made beignets at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans.
Those are good.
French, yeah.
Sure.
That's what he did.
He did that and he wrote.
Was he a sort of tortured guy?
I think that might be a good description.
Because, you know, you have those, in our lives, you know, talented people who are gifted
that just can't get out.
And they end up sort of, kind of like you know keep chipping away but they work a job
and it becomes this dream it's like a sort of a a slightly tragic but romantic idea you know that
someday you'd be you know found or he had he and he and he i don't know why we're talking about
this so much but i guess because he's on the anniversary of his death is coming up in a month
or so too but he had a a taste of success with a small play he had written
that was accepted at the O'Neill Festival in Connecticut
and then a very small production of it done off, off, off, off Broadway.
But that was the only real taste of success he had.
But when I cleaned out his apartment, I found,
I took all of his writing and it would fill this room.
Really?
The boxes of notebooks and spiral notebooks and legal pads.
He wrote incessantly.
He wrote the dictionary.
Huh.
He just wrote.
Probably to learn words.
He had a very good vocabulary.
Did you read any of this stuff?
I have started, yes.
I started reading the journals first.
Yeah.
And at first they were, you know, abstract and artistic.
And then they sort of became just sort of almost Beckettian in the sort of dialogue with oneself.
Right.
What are you going to do today?
I'm going to write.
No, you're not going to fucking write.
You're going to smoke and drink like you do every day.
No, I'm going to get up.
I'm going to go to the, he had this restaurant.
He went to a coffee shop.
I'm going to sit outside.
I'm going to finish.
No, you're not going to fucking do that at all.
This is what he's writing.
Yes.
These conversations.
Yeah.
That sounds like a kind of fertile. it could be if it went past that but when it stays there it doesn't exactly illuminate you know just so well how many
notebooks did you look at 100 and maybe it stayed there yeah it stayed there oh some of it some of
it way back i mean i'm talking about from the 60s.
Yeah.
He wrote when he was in the Navy, and he wrote all the time.
Yeah.
And some of it's very good.
And some of his plays are very good in character.
He didn't have a whole lot of life experience,
so the plots of the plays were not succinct,
or they didn't really go anywhere.
There are no epiphanies, no inciting incidents.
Right.
But because he worked in basically the food industry all of his life, either starting
as a dishwasher and then a cook and then beignet maker, he worked with the real backbone
of New Orleans, the one that I knew.
Sure.
The poor.
It's been there forever.
Yeah.
And he caught their lives beautifully, but it's sort of like, you know, a friend of mine and I wrote a soap opera
what's called Lives Going Nowhere.
It's just, you know, just sort of in this circle of what are you going to do?
I think I'll water the plant.
Did you water the plant?
Yeah, I did.
What are you going to do tomorrow?
I think I'll water the plant again.
You know, that's basically how it went.
How many episodes did you write of that?
A lot.
Really?
Yeah.
Was it a satire?
It was.
It was called Conversations in Wax, actually, was the title of it.
So you guys were, you know, it's interesting to think about not having a father around
because that sort of like forces you to do something on your own.
I guess it does.
You know, my father was around physically, you know, but I talk to people.
There's a lot of people that have, you know, absent fathers that, you know, it sets something going, some sort of, you know, if you can manage it, there's an ambition there.
That, you know, the self-parenting and you're kind of hard on yourself because you're missing the guy to be hard on you.
Yeah, I guess.
I think also, though, you know, and my mother was very caring,
but she worked every day.
She sold clothes on Canal Street in New Orleans
for 35 years, 40 years,
however long she did it,
and worked every day.
We moved in with her parents
until I was 12
when she remarried
a very nice man,
a welder named Joe,
and then we moved to a house
that he had bought
for her and I,
or for her and I came along.
You have siblings?
No. Just you? Yeah. Well, other for her, and I came along. You have siblings? No.
Just you?
Yeah.
Well, other than the ones I don't know.
Right.
There were four of those, and I have never met them either.
Huh.
And now, is the fear of doing that or the non-desire to do that now?
Because you would think as you get older, you'd be curious.
Yeah.
But what do you think stops you?
I think it's sort of like a, what is it like?
It's probably like a person who's never heard of the word car or seen one and then say,
oh, by the way, you've owned a car for 55 years.
It's in the garage.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
I don't have any connection to it. Right. I don't know what didn't know that. Yeah. I don't have any connection to it.
Right.
I don't know what to do with it.
Right.
I don't know what I would do with meeting these people.
I just, because growing up, I never had any connection.
But they're half your blood, right?
They're half your blood.
They are.
Yeah.
I guess it might be emotionally overwhelming, too.
It could very well be.
What do you need that for at this point in your life, I guess, on some level?
Without a doubt.
But there were times as I was younger, i said when i decided i'm gonna go
see who he is yeah and i didn't make it because he didn't stay around and it just you know my life
became you know i never had any connection to them so it just became my life here with my wife and my
children and it just never went and i never went i saw you know what now that i mentioned this i
was in new or Orleans years and years ago
hosting a charity event
for the Children's Museum
with Taylor Hackford
at his bar.
He had a bar in the city.
The director.
Yes, exactly.
Married to Helen Mirren
and he had a bar down there
and he was hosting
and it was an evening of comics
and I was just saying,
and now from Bugaloosa
here's whoever.
So I'm sitting in the bar
after this evening
with Taylor Hackford
and I see a man
walking toward me, a young man and I and my only thought
is it looks like my father I have one picture of my father when he was in the
Navy from the early 40s and he walks up to me and he was seemed a bit you know
no worse for wear and said hi I'm Kenneth Laura can I'm your brother I
don't know okay hi how are Yeah. And that was it.
He sort of went, okay, great.
Nice to meet you, and walked off.
Really?
That was the extent of it.
And I didn't follow him.
I didn't pursue it.
So I don't know.
I just never felt impelled enough to go figure out
what the hell's happening.
Did he look like you?
No, he looked like my father.
I look like my mother.
I'm definitely on the Oremus side, which I'm not even sure where that's from. hell's happening did he look like you no he looked like my father i look like my mother oh i'm i'm
definitely on the oremus side which i'm not even sure where that's from i think spanish or greek
or something so you brought up real catholic very yeah does it did it hold no what what knocked it
out drugs um no i don't i think um i used to euphemistically say that I discovered Friedrich Nietzsche in my penis, but I think
by-
At the same time?
While reading, God is dead.
I don't know, because when I was young, I was very devout, and really, I thought being
a priest would be a great gig.
Really?
Oh, man.
At least the ones that I knew in grammar school and high school.
You got some good ones?
Lived in the rector.
Yeah, nobody ever, you know, they slapped me around
but they never,
maybe I wasn't cute enough
but,
you know,
every couple of years
I got a new station wagon.
They had a great old house
in New Orleans
to live in next to the church.
They were respected.
Completely.
They were good teachers.
Yeah.
You know,
I was taught by
Franciscan priests
and then Holy Cross brothers.
I have to thank them
for enlightening me
whatsoever to literature.
No, my family was not an intellectual group of people.
There weren't heady conversations around the dinner table.
It was more past the crawfish kind of conversations.
But the priests were another world.
Timothy Hickey was his name, actually, gave me a book once.
And I think, and I say this, and again, it may be just bullshit where it came from,
but it was Waiting for God, though.
I remember as like 12 years old having a copy of waiting for god oh i said yeah yeah yeah because
somebody a priest saying you know i think you'll find this interesting wow and i read it and it
sort of went baboom and so and then i started reading so i have to thank them for that good
dough started it good dough wow and a priest gave you it irish priest huh he must have sent something
i guess he did this kid's already he's certainly depressed
enough to appreciate beckett well really were you depressed kid i don't know i was scared
i remember being scared i'm scared now yeah well um until i sort of grew into myself a bit you know
and really discovered that i can diffuse tremendous energy with comedy.
You know, I was not a comic ever, but I was funny.
But you're very funny.
You know, it's a rare thing to have that natural,
like you have a sort of cranky funny.
Okay.
Right?
You know, I mean, that character on Night Court
was kind of, is it cynical the right word?
Yeah, I think he probably was cynical.
Yeah, that's a very delicate and natural archetype,
the cynical cranky comic.
That's still endearing.
It's not easy to do.
I think the key word is endearing.
Oh, the endearing crank, hard to do.
I had conversations with my late manager,
Bernie Brillstein, about that very thing
because he was a brilliant man
and he was also sort of responsible
for Dabney Coleman's show, Buffalo Bill.
Do you remember that at all?
Sure, yeah.
And he and I had a conversation about that
and it was really my wife
who had brought it up at one point
that where Dan Fielding could be a boor
and a jerk and an asshole,
but at some point,
he would either do something human
or he would sort of glance at the fourth wall and go, I know, but at some point in the, he would either do something human or he would
sort of glance at the fourth wall and go, I know, but I can't help it.
Yeah.
Right.
So he knew he was an asshole.
Right.
Right.
Whereas Dabney Coleman's character, I don't think would ever admit he was an asshole and
there was nobody around him who could say, you're an asshole.
Right.
You know, the judge character, Harry Anderson's character could look at me and go, you're
an asshole.
Right.
So could everybody.
Right.
Look at Dan Fielding and say, you're an asshole right so could everybody right look at dan fielding so you're an asshole and you go yeah i know and so i think
people kind of forgave him things because well that's everybody that i mean that's a lot of
people that you know they find relief in that yeah i guess right like you know i mean on some level
you know even archie bunker he didn't have a lot of self-awareness but you knew he couldn't help
himself yes you're right you know yes it's absolutely right and that's what made him endearing he represented something but you
didn't hate him no you couldn't hate him although my grandfather hated him but really yeah yeah
i used to talk to him because i talked about that show he said that's not fucking funny
so when do uh when do drugs and acting happen um did you join the service sounds like your
friend joined the service.
Yeah, I did.
I was in the Navy for a short time, did my reserve duty, and then got out of that.
Where'd that take you?
Pensacola, Florida, as far as I ever got.
Yeah.
But before that, when I was working for the first radio station, which was an automated
station, right?
It was just a wall.
We started this whole thing with you learning how to get rid of your accent on a cloud.
I had a little Grundig tape recorder, a little like spy reel-to-reel tape recorder.
And I would record Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite.
And then in the morning, I would read the newspaper trying to imitate Walter Cronkite.
I just try to get rid of that voice.
So you're conscious of it.
Yeah, very conscious.
But I don't, I often say that I didn't really study to lose the accent, but I think just
by osmosis and hearing these other people that it sort of slipped away from me.
You were trying to be a broadcaster.
Yeah, at a classical radio station.
So, you know, you wanted to have an FM voice, right?
Yeah.
And so I did that for a while and then was asked by some other, I don't even know how
that happened, some other radio station to come on there.
And at that point, there was no underground radio yet.
Yeah.
This is like 65.
There was a little bit, KSAN had sort of started, I guess.
65, huh?
65, 66.
Wow, what would have been underground?
Well, KSAN, you know, Tom Donahue and those guys,
that was kind of starting.
KPPC was doing some stuff.
I assigned theater was on the air.
Sure.
And another fellow named Richard
had brought some tapes
and I think from WBZ
or something on the East Coast.
Yeah.
Where they were just starting
because of the FM signal
being multiplex
and able to broadcast in stereo.
Yeah.
All of a sudden
you had these stereo albums.
Right.
Nobody was,
nothing was on the FM band.
Every AM station had an FM band connected to it.
It was simulcast all day long with about an hour of original programming at midnight in order to keep the licensor.
Right.
On the FM band.
On the FM band.
Yeah.
So Richard Shank was his name, very intelligent, creative fellow, convinced the station we were working for, which was at the time was,
I would be on the air at 2 p.m. saying,
it's drive time, here's a little, you know,
Steven Eadie.
Yeah.
Middle of the road, I think we called it.
So this is after classical.
Yes.
Uh-huh.
And he convinced the owner of this station
to give him four hours a night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
He did two hours and I did two hours
of what was happening.
Yeah.
Because nobody was playing Jimi Hendrix in New Orleans.leans right a friend of mine was fired from a radio station for playing
purple haze really top 40 so you're going 12 to 2 10 to 2 a.m 10 to 2 a.m but he split he split it
with him yeah and eventually i'm going 12 to 2 yeah and eventually we took over the entire station
richard went off somewhere else i became the director. And for a good solid two and a half years,
we were the free-form radio station
in mostly all of the South.
So this isn't the Beatles.
Yeah, that's everything.
I mean, basically every DJ was his own program director.
Yeah.
Bring in anything you want.
And what did you gravitate towards?
You know, Jimi Hendrix and T.S. Eliot.
Sure.
You had T.S. Eliot reading?
Yes.
I think I have a record of that.
Yes, indeed.
Hollow Men and all of his stuff.
Korean wedding gongs, as I like to say.
And we had a very small transmitter.
If it rained in Alabama, we could go off the air.
Were you riffing comedically?
But the only thing we did, which I think every, you know, some city has always done,
we would sometimes say, you know,
in New Orleans every Saturday night,
doing a horror movie,
you know, light up a joint,
turn off the sound,
tune into the radio station.
Yeah.
And me and the fellow I was mentioning earlier,
Norbert, and a few other DJs
would sit around
and fill in the dialogue for the movie,
much like science fiction 3000 or something.
Right, right.
Mystery science theater.
But in the 60s.
Yeah.
And just all stupid stuff.
And none of that exists either.
Sure.
None of that's around.
But it gave you some freedom,
some creativity.
Totally, because, you know,
your log,
there might be two commercials an hour.
They were for the new whatever free
or album or Janis Joplin album
and the head shop in the French Quarter
that was trying to sell beads and bongs.
Yeah.
You know, and that's the only time
that you could sell. Right. Everything else was trade-outs. We'd get free lunches at a restaurant in the French Quarter that was trying to sell beads and bongs. Yeah. And that's the only time that you could sell.
Right.
Everything else was trade-outs.
We'd get free lunches at a restaurant
in the French Quarter.
It's the best.
Barter's the best.
Free waterbeds.
Yeah, yeah.
Which I didn't,
we didn't know what a waterbed was,
so I just filled it up with no frame and no blanket,
and I woke up the next morning
and my body temperature was like 50 degrees
because I had no idea how to use it.
It was stupid.
But we kept doing that, you know?
And then I moved to another radio station in Houston, Texas for a while, back to New
Orleans.
And that whole period between like 66 and 70 was, you know, sort of like a pinball.
Were you hosting concerts and stuff?
Were you doing that?
I did that.
Some of the radio stations hosted the MC to Who concert in Houston.
Yeah.
Richie Haven's concert in Houston.
The Yodbirds in New Orleans. No kidding. There was one club called The Warehouse that everybody came to. Yeah. Richie Havens concert in Houston. Yardbirds in New Orleans.
No kidding. There was one club called the
Warehouse that everybody came to. Yeah.
That's where I saw everybody from Frank Zappa
to Captain Beefheart. Oh, you saw them
all in the prime, huh? Yeah. So
what were you tripping? Were you tripping on acid and doing
the whole thing? Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
I admit, sir.
Yeah, discovered that pretty quickly and preferred it.
I didn't drink at all, very much at all in the 60s.
Just weed and acid?
Yeah, primarily.
Yeah, and did it change your perception?
I guess it sort of opened up part of the brain that hadn't been to some sort of aesthetic.
And knowing then that I thought, I don't know what I'm going to stay in New Orleans for.
I don't know what will happen to me if I stay here.
Again, my friend and I were talking about it last night.
I would have discovered, I don't know, to become a bartender
or I don't know, I couldn't have stayed.
I don't know what would have happened.
Well, when did you start acting and how did you train?
What was the deal?
You didn't.
In 1970, I got a job in San diego california uh working for a new
record company that had just started some guy had inherited some money and wanted to start a record
label he had run across a friend of mine who was a songwriter he calls me and says this guy's looking
for somebody to set up distribution for this new company and i knew all the guys that one stops
around because of radio and sure having worked forca. So I moved to San Diego.
You worked for Decca?
Yeah, for a short time as an assistant promotion director in New Orleans.
Oh, okay.
Basically, I would go around a radio station and say,
hey, have you heard the new Elton John? And you knew everybody.
Sure, yeah.
Basically, yeah.
So now you're working in San Diego.
What was the label?
Harbor Records.
Uh-huh, Harbor Records.
Did they ever do anything?
One record.
What?
Hubert the Rainmaking Hippopotamus.
Get out.
That I produced and did all the voices on.
Really?
That's the only thing.
Come on.
I swear to God.
That was your first gig?
Yeah, it was the only thing that ever existed.
That wasn't my job.
My job was to promote the records that they were going to make.
Please tell me it wasn't a children's record.
Please tell me it was a concept comedy record for people on acid.
No, it's actually based on a very successful book called Hubert the Rainmaking Hippopotamus. Please tell me it was a concept comedy record for people on acid.
No, it's actually based on a very successful book called Hubert, The Rainmaking of Repotable. And they had it licensed?
Yeah, by a fellow named Thorne Bacon, a children's book writer, version writer.
So I did that, and then the fellow ran out of money, and I thought, well, what am I going to do in San Diego?
And you know Old Town, you know San Diego?
Yeah, a little.
Old Town, there's a section of Old Town where there's lots of Mexican restaurants.
In Old Town, there's a theater.
I walked in one night.
The actors were sitting around a table reading a play.
I sat and just watched.
I went, that's really fun.
Started to leave.
Lady says, are you an actor?
No.
Next week, we're going to read a play
where we're minus one male voice.
Would you want to come back and just sit and read with us?
I went, okay, fine.
I went back the next week.
It happened to be a Tennessee Williams play
called Vucaray, where I lived. And after reading it, I walked out of the theater, walked home,
worked at the apartment that I was living in and the girl who I happened to be with at the time as
well, I said, I've got to be an actor, I think. So I really sat down at the kitchen table and said,
okay, there are three choices. Go back to New Orleans and open up a theater,
go to New York and try to break onto Broadway.
But I'm only 100 miles from Hollywood.
Right.
Let me go to Hollywood and become an actor.
And this is 1970 what?
1973.
Oh, the heyday of insanity.
Well.
That was that you were just catching the wave that went all the way into the 80s.
Yeah, pretty much.
So you came here.
It almost drowned me, but yes.
You came here in 73 august
of 73 the film industry and tv industries were still pretty intimate no no no connections no
education no no nothing but an appetite nothing not not even a clue as to how i would go about
doing this but you knew you liked to party oh yeah and even that had even that was sort of amateur at the time.
It was indeed yes, but it was still mostly smoking
and the occasional mushroom.
Not professional yet.
Right, right.
Not really professional yet.
And blow wasn't big yet.
No.
That was late 70s when I became, unfortunately, acquainted with that.
And that's the one that did you in?
No, I don't think so.
Booze did me in.
I was a drunk.
I mean, I preferred drinking, I think.
But you weren't drinking yet.
No, I wasn't.
So you got no connections, no nothing.
I'm sober, too.
That's the reason I'm talking openly about it, because I know that you're sober, and
I'm glad I'm talking to another alcoholic today.
I needed it.
Good.
Good.
Glad to be here for you.
So what happens with nothing to go with?
I was literally, I was on the bus going to the unemployment office.
Yeah.
And the bus stopped and I looked out the window
and there was a sign on a door that said acting lessons $10 a week.
I got off the bus, walked into the room,
gave the guy $10 and stayed there for a month.
And mostly he wanted to have girls get naked on the stage so he could talk about how they
have to open themselves up to the process.
But another fellow I was with said, you know, I just read this ad and there was a drama
log, which makes-
Do you remember the teacher's name?
Was he anybody?
Did he-
I shan't say that.
Okay.
No.
He's still around?
As far as I know, he's still alive.
And of course, they claim they made my career, which is fine.
They can.
Those are the only acting lessons I've ever taken.
Did you learn anything there?
I learned that I was funny.
That's what I learned.
Because so much of it was just improv on the stage, set up a scene.
Right.
And I thought, yeah, I can make people laugh, it seems.
Oh, good.
But this other fellow had an ad, and it said, open call for casting for a play.
Yeah.
And so we went, and it was Ron Saucy.
I don't know him.
The Odyssey Theater.
Been around for 40 years.
Okay.
And now on Sepulveda, there's like three theaters in a row right there between Olympic and Pico.
Anyway, at the time, he was at Bundy in Santa Monica, where the Starbucks is now.
And there was an open reading for a production of The Crucible.
Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
Yeah, yeah.
And I read for it, and I got cast as the priest, naturally.
Yeah.
And so I did it.
I just showed up and did that.
And then a few people in that place said, you know, we want to do a comedy.
And we think you would really be good in said you know we want to do a comedy and
we think you would really be good in it do you want to do that with us yeah well yeah well i
guess that's you know and i had a job i was working at and actually an answering service
hello mr phillips rest and it's gonna take a message on sunset boulevard you use that voice
uh-huh and so i did this other play and um was it an original play? No. It was Joseph Stein's basic, based on Carl Reiner, his biography, his autobiography called
Enter Laughing.
That actually started Alan Arkin's career in the 60s on Broadway.
And I was cast as the lead character in it.
Did that.
Met my wife then in that play.
She was in it as well.
And I got a decent review.
It said that in Variety, it said John Larroquette approaches the character with Elon.
I had to look up what Elon meant.
But it was, oh, that's an okay review.
Yeah.
And filled a bunch of envelopes, sent pictures out to agents with a cover letter.
I'm an actor looking for an agent, so what the fuck is new?
Yeah.
If you want to laugh, come see this play.
One guy showed up.
Yeah. Called me the next day and said, yeah If you want to laugh, come see this play. One guy showed up. Yeah.
Called me the next day
and said,
yeah,
you want to try to do something?
And I had an agent.
How long did you stay with that guy?
Oh Christ,
let's see,
that was 75,
six,
seven years.
Uh-huh.
All the very early stuff,
the little bits on Ellery Queen
or Kojak
or Remington Steel,
the little guest shots that I did.
Sanford and Son?
Sanford and Son.
So you were working?
Steinberg and Son.
I was working.
I was a day player and then a guest shot on series,
you know, Mork and Mindy, Three's Company.
Did you meet Robin?
Oh, yes.
I had scenes with Robin.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Did you hang out at all?
No.
No.
I hung out more with Jonathan Winters.
Jonathan Winters.
Who was playing his son then, you know, at this point in the series.
He told me, the last thing he said to me was, you're a good lad, but you better get to those
fucking magic meetings or you're going to die.
Oh, really?
Said that to me.
So you were already, so that's 19-
That's 79 thereabouts, I guess.
So when you're out here and you're doing these bit parts and you're running around Hollywood, did you have a crew?
Were you doing the Laurel Canyon thing?
I mean, where were, or were you one of those sort of drinking alone guys?
When did the booze start?
Yeah.
The booze started, I would say, in 76-ish with the series that I did, the Baba Black Sheep series.
Was that on?
Huh?
Did it make it on TV? Yeah, it was on for three years. Really? Yeah It was about Navy pilots during the Second World War in the Pacific
Uh-huh based on a famous pilots life on a guy named Greg Boynton Pappy Boynton. Were you the comic relief?
No, we were seven of us. There were seven black sheep the pilots me
Dirk blocker James Whitmore jr. Robert Ginty, Jeff McKay, W.K. Stratton, Larry Minetti.
Conrad was the Boyington character.
And it was action adventure.
It was a war series.
Yeah.
You know?
We were on opposite Charlie's Angels.
Right.
And still survived for a while.
But that's when the drinking sort of started with those guys.
Because you're making money.
You got a gig.
I was making like two grand a week.
Probably bought your first house. No. That didn't happen till sobriety oh really
but you're living with a woman right you married at this point yes okay in 77 jonathan was born
so you know she had a daughter and she became my daughter yeah who was born in 1970 elizabeth and
i met when lisa was three and so we were a family. Right. And I think, you know, this is all bullshit.
I don't know what's real and what's not real.
But I think that Jonathan being born, nothing to do with him,
but it set up some sort of paradigm between me and my father.
Now I have a son like he did.
What the fuck?
Yeah.
And I sort of went off the deep end for whatever reason.
It really triggered something.
I guess.
I don't fucking know.
It's hard to figure that stuff out.
No, I'm a drunk.
That's why I went off the rails.
I'm a drunk.
There's no reason with thinking about it.
Why not think about it?
I guess you can think about it, but there's no real answer.
Why do you drink?
Because I'm a drunk.
Well, yeah, that.
But I mean, what started it.
I don't know.
Right.
Whatever chemistry is involved, whatever. There know, there just was never enough.
I want more.
Give me more.
Is there more?
Right.
Let me have some more.
Exactly.
It's best to accept that.
But even in the 60s, before booze, I was known in the French Quarter as the lab.
People would send me shit and say, take this and tell us what it does because we're not
sure.
Yeah.
And you do it.
And I had no fear.
I had no qualms.
Okay, let's see what happens.
Yeah.
So you were that guy.
And I survived. A bunch of people looking at you. Yeah. And I had no fear. I had no qualms. Okay, let's see what happens. Yeah. So you were that guy. And I survived.
Bunch of people looking at you.
Yeah.
And I survived.
So the 70s rolled along, you know, fits and starts, and that's the way it was.
And then it sort of, I sort of hit bottom when I did Stripes.
And then somehow.
What year was that?
81.
That was it, huh?
Yeah.
You said you were drunk on the set of Stripes.
First, only time you'll ever see me drunk on camera
is in that movie.
And at that point,
how was the family holding together?
It was better than it had been for a bit.
My wife actually sort of told me to take a hike for a bit,
and I sort of did that thing for a bit,
but she had faith.
She had faith in me.
And the other thing that I know now when I look at people who I've loved who have died,
and even sober have died, have taken their lives or whatever.
Right.
I guess I never lost hope.
That may sound corny.
But I never got to a point where I thought this might not change.
I always thought this could change.
It could.
You thought that you would stop drinking or that things would just get better?
I don't know which.
Yeah.
I thought they would get better, but I knew that they're not going to get better if you
keep doing this.
Right.
So eventually those two things met, you know, the moment of clarity, the fork in the road,
take it, et cetera.
All happened at once.
One night sitting at a table drunk.
Well, you're lucky.
I just stopped.
You're lucky.
Yes.
Because like, you know, for some people, you know, that once you get introduced to it,
and I imagine you do the magic meetings occasionally, that once you get introduced to it, that's
in your head.
So if you go back after, you know, once you identify yourself, like I'm a fucking alcoholic
and then you go back out, then you're fighting against that thing.
That's what I hear.
Yeah.
That was not my reality.
My reality was, drank, drank, drank, drank, sober.
Yeah.
Done.
But you got help.
Done.
I got help.
Yeah, yeah.
There's certain philosophers I read a lot of.
Uh-huh.
As a matter of fact, I thanked him when I won my first Emmy, Bill W.
Oh, yeah, sure.
I read a lot of him.
Sure.
Yeah, you got to.
Also Aldous Huxley and also other people.
Sure.
You read the ones that align with it properly.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't want to read the, not too existential.
No, no. Yeah, yeah. Simple. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to read the, not too existential. No, no. Yeah. Simple.
Yeah. Pretty simple. You don't want to go into the darkness, but I got sober and, um, you know,
things started looking up. I was showing up, I was suiting up and, and, uh, uh, a year after that happened, I got a audition for the night court show. And that changed everything. It did.
Indeed. Gift of sobriety. It, I would like to, I would an audition for the Night Court show. And that changed everything. It did, indeed.
Gift of sobriety.
I would definitely give it credit,
because I certainly would not have.
That would not have happened had I not.
And that was a hell of a run.
That was a long run.
Nine years.
Nine years.
Did it ever get tedious?
Oh, yes.
Oh, yes.
Any long-running show does.
And particularly after, you know, in those days, particularly,
and this is true of any show, I suppose, in a half-hour world like that,
whoever creates it stays around.
They get it on the air and make it a huge success.
And they get very rich, particularly in those days,
the salad days of sitcoms with syndication, et cetera.
Still only a few networks on the air.
Yeah.
Three networks and public TV, and that's it. A little UHF going on. Yeah, yeah. HBO was just going, ah,ication, et cetera. Still only a few networks on the air. Yeah. Three networks.
Three networks.
Public TV, and that's it.
A little UHF going on. Yeah, yeah.
HBO was just going, ah, ah, coming out.
And so the creator usually leaves at some point.
If they're not driven, like Chuck Lorre or Jimmy Burrows or the Charles Brothers, they
leave.
And then a series of producers come and run the show, and they try to put their stamp
on it.
So it changes the dynamic.
It changes a lot. Right. And every sitcom in those days eventually jumps the shark. Sure.
And Night Court's no exception in that, I don't think. So when it ended, you were ready. Yes. As
a matter of fact, I don't publicize this, but I was offered a spinoff in year six, I think,
or year seven. Yeah. And I said no. Yeah. You're done with that guy. Yeah. And also,
somewhat self-serving is that i thought
because of the kind of humor that dan fielding started to represent yeah it would be a long
time before i was off at the part of a dad or just sort of straight fellow it was so out of
there right it was so cutting and so popular like four emmys yes and you know it was uh people loved
the guy for who he was very hard for tv actors TV actors to rise above or pull out of a character
that is so embedded in the American culture and the mind.
It is.
But you were able to do it.
A bit.
You know, the La Roquette show was successful,
considering in those days, you know,
100 episodes of a television show is not successful.
But it could have been more so had I been a little smarter and a little more...
You did 100 John Larracast shows?
Uh-huh.
And that was focused a bit on your life.
That was...
Well, no.
It was just based on...
It was written by a fellow named Don Rio,
a very talented writer.
But sobriety was at the center of it.
Yes, but that was his, not mine.
I took a year off after Night Court ended.
I stayed home with...
By that time, Ben was born, our youngest.
And I just hung at home and started reading scripts
and came across this one called Crossroads at the time
about this guy who we discover five hours sober.
That's how we meet him.
He's five hours sober.
Working the midnight shift at a bus station in St. Louis.
Yeah.
And I met with Don and loved him.
And he and I went, hey, you want to try to do this?
And I had a deal set up at NBC, obviously.
Not obviously, but I did.
And so we did it.
And, you know, it lasted a while.
But I blame myself for its lack of longevity in a sense because we were so in love with
the idea of doing a comedy about that dark subject.
Right.
But I think both he and I kind of shoved it down the audience's throat a little too much,
too often.
You know, the first 12 episodes were based on the 12 steps
of a particular self-help group.
Sure, sure.
But I should have done it over two years.
We should have just done like every third episode,
do it based on that.
And I think it just became a little tough for the audience
to swallow every week.
But it was funny.
It was very funny.
And it was also unusual in that it was a very mixed racial cast.
We had Chill Mitchell and Shy McBride and Liz Torres.
I mean, great comics.
Lenny Clark was-
Lenny Clark.
Lenny Clark.
Well, in those days, too, I mean, some of the guests we had,
I mean, Drew Carey was a guest.
Romano was a guest.
Guys who, you know, sitcoms were being given to comics by this point.
Sure.
Not many of them survived. Ray Romano certainly did. Right. And that was a little later, too, I know, sitcoms were being given to comics by this point. Sure. Not many of them survived.
Ray Romano certainly did.
Right.
And that was a little later too, I think, right?
He got it later.
He was a bit player.
Like everyone was out here doing that thing.
Yeah.
Showing up on shows like you did.
Like everybody does.
Everybody does.
Except for me.
I didn't.
But I do a little now.
But yeah.
I mean, so when did you hook up with Brillstein, though?
During Laura Kett.
He came to me during, he and I got to know each other during night court,
and at the time, I thought, I don't need a manager.
What am I going to use a manager now for?
Who knows how long this show's going to last?
So you didn't have a manager, you just had the agent.
Yeah, I just had agents then.
And so when Laura Kett started, I called Bernie and said,
I'd like some, I'd just like your input in my career.
So he and I got together.
And what was that like?
Because I don't talk to many people about him too in depth, but he was certainly a legend.
And, you know, there was a generation of people that he personally represented.
I've only known a couple.
What was the impact he had on you when you sat with him?
I think that he, you know, historically he knew everybody.
You know, he knew how things worked.
He knew where to go to ask the right person.
Nobody would not pick up the phone if Bernie called them.
Right.
You know, which I have often said I think is the definition of a good manager is that everybody will take their call.
You know, they might not get you the job, but they're going to take his call.
Right.
And he helped negotiation in La Roquette and just sort of, you know, he and I became close during those years.
I mean, I think also, you know, I didn't, I wasn't with him at the pinnacle, you know,
it wasn't SNL or, you know, Jim Henson days or, you know, the big, big time.
Right.
Bernie, it was, well, he was on a plateau and enjoying it.
His daughter became my agent, Lee, at ICM for a long time.
And he was just a good guy to go to for advice and to,
hey, what do you think about, I'll give him a call.
Wait, we'll find out.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and if something didn't work out,
his line was just, fuck him, next.
You know, just move on.
And it was great to be around him.
And I'm still with the organization.
Yeah.
Once he died, I went with another manager.
Over at Brillstein Gray?
Yeah.
Well, that's, yeah he like i i think i
met him once um and uh i didn't you know you just you meet legends sometimes you don't know them but
you just sort of like that's the guy yeah but he was really all that and i would go into his office
all the time and talk and he was very friendly and you know have good stories all of a sudden
martin short would be in the room with me and you know we would you know because he was marty's
agent for a long marty's manager for a long time.
Yeah.
And during those years, I was really busy too.
So the only, he actually, while I was doing Night Court,
I did a movie before I was with him that he produced.
Yeah.
And he owed me for that because it was a horrible movie.
And so I would often mention it to him that you made me do Second Sight, so
you've got to really help me out the next time we
have a chance to really do something good.
But you were always showing up in a lot of movies.
It's interesting. You always worked
and the big success was on television.
Absolutely.
Very, very small actual
film profile.
Does that bother you?
I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm not,
I don't know.
It used to a bit, I think,
but I was always so busy
that I figured, well, that's
my thing. Baseball's been very good to me, so television's
been very good to me. And then you got another
Emmy for The Practice? Yes, I did.
And that was as the recurring
character that was only...
He was in, wound up being in like four episodes,
but the first one was really a one-off,
but then David Kelly the next year said,
I want to bring him back.
And Joey Herrick was the character's name,
came back the following year as a guest.
And that wasn't a comedic character.
No, but I find humor in all characters.
And no, he was a homicidal, homosexual murderer.
So no, that's not exactly Peter Sellers.
It's the party.
Sure.
Right.
But it was a great character.
Yeah.
David Kelly is a great writer who I then worked for for a few years later on.
And which one?
Boston Legal.
Yeah.
He's a good guy, that David Kelly?
Yeah.
Smart guy.
He had a lot of shows on.
And just wrote. That's all he did was write. Yeah, he's a good guy, that David Kelly? Yeah. Smart guy, he had a lot of shows on. And just wrote, that's all he did was write.
Yeah.
I mean, he would write 20 episodes a year of an hour show
with delicate and intricate cases and stuff.
And you're still working, is it because you love to work?
Yeah, I think so.
I don't know what I would do.
I don't know what else to do.
Well, I mean, I imagine starting to do real Broadway and stuff
in terms of whether or not whatever your movie profile is,
to win a Tony and to be in a major Broadway.
For a guy that didn't necessarily train as an actor other than on the job,
to be on the stage at that point in your career as a seasoned guy
must have been sort of jarring and exciting.
Very exciting.
And also very uh i told my
wife many times during that uh beginning period of rehearsal i'm gonna they're gonna fire me
i'm i'm done with this i tell you how stressful it was mark for which one the the how to succeed
the first one how stressful it was um i shouldn't admit this but i I forgot my wife's birthday. For the first time in 40 years, I was so turned into my brain thinking,
I can't dance?
I can't sing?
What the fuck am I doing in a musical?
What the fuck?
I was gone.
For the first month, I was absolutely gone.
Just really beating the shit out of yourself?
Just not.
I get, you know, one, two, three, one, two, five.
Oh, shit.
I'm getting a one, two, three.
I mean, just.
Really?
Oh, man.
I can't imagine. Tough. And you got gotta do that in front of people yeah luckily yeah the the dance captain she and i was a husband and wife
team yeah both very nice english yeah my wife is english so i get along with the english right
and his wife sarah chris bailey's wife sarah o gle, Gil Glebe, was my dance captain.
And she had the patience of a saint with me.
And I would get in, it was 10 hours a day,
six days a week.
And for the first three weeks,
I didn't care about the script.
I didn't care about the acting.
I said, I can find the jokes.
I'll find the jokes.
Don't worry about it.
How do I dance?
I've got to get this down. Yeah. And she choreographed the jokes. I'll find the jokes. Don't worry about it. How do I dance? I've got to get this down.
Yeah.
And she choreographed the dance.
And there's really one big number that he does
with Dan Radcliffe.
He and I do this sort of,
it's called a groundhog song about football.
It's a football song.
Yeah.
And eventually I started,
oh, I started to be able to stop thinking about it
so incessantly, constantly while I was doing it.
And eventually it became, I wouldn't ever say easy,
but it became doable for me every night.
Through repetition.
Through repetition, completely.
Right.
Like I said, the jokes and the humor,
I didn't have any problem finding.
Right.
It's pretty simple.
And the fact that you can,
in a musical on stage like that.
And also most of my career had been in front of an audience.
Sure.
Nine years of night court, four years of La Roquette,
300 people every Friday night.
Yeah.
They were in the house.
You weren't worried about that.
No.
You just wanted to make sure you could dance.
I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't embarrass anybody.
And do you, yeah.
Do you love doing stage?
Yeah, very much.
And the thing about that, and again,
the high class problem was many times prior to that time, which was 2011 when we started How to Succeed, many times prior to that, I was asked to go to New York by Neil Simon, Herb Gardner, great playwrights, but I never had the time, right?
You've got, what, three or four months off?
Well, they identified you as a great comic talent.
I guess, but I never had the time to give Broadway.
Yeah.
And I didn't want to go in as a replacement over some or something.
If I do Broadway, I want to show up.
Yeah.
And so after Boston Legal is when I said, okay, stop.
Let's stop and let me go see if anybody would really give a shit if I showed up in New York.
Yeah.
And I got actually an off-Broadway play at the Cherry Lane.
Beautiful little theater.
I like that.
That's where they first did True West, I think, in New York.
Yes.
I think you're right.
Yes.
Because I talked to Gary Sinise about it.
Yeah.
Edward Albee's seat was always right there waiting for him.
And he came to see the play one night.
But a small play, I got that.
The first time I went to New York as a professional was to host SNL.
I knew nothing about New York.
Yeah.
So I got an apartment at the Marriott on whatever it was and sort of lived in New York.
Walked to the theater.
What was the play?
Walked to rehearsal.
It was called Oliver Parker.
Written by Elizabeth Merriweather, screenwriter.
Yeah.
Funny, very funny, talented lady.
A weird little dark kind of comedy play.
Manageable venue for the first time in.
Totally.
Yeah.
Because it was like the equity waiver out here.
Right.
I could see the back row.
Right.
So it was fine.
I wasn't, and then I went, okay, that was okay.
I could do something else.
And then the offer for How to Succeed came across my desk.
And then what was the big show you did with James Earl Jones?
A play written by Gorby Dahl in 1960 called The Best Man,
which takes place at a political convention.
Yeah.
One man running for president, another man running for president,
one being sort of Kennedy-esque, the other being more right-wing, et cetera.
Gorby Dahl wrote it in 1960 kind of with Kennedy in mind.
Yeah.
And James Earl Jones plays the sitting president
who comes to try and figure things out.
And Gorby Didal was still alive
when we started rehearsing.
Unfortunately, he died
while we were,
during the run.
But the cast,
I mean, James Earl Jones
played the president,
as I said.
Angela Lansbury,
Candice Bergen played
my character's wife.
Great, just a wonderful woman
and a great actress.
We ran for,
we extended,
so we ran for like nine months.
Wow.
So that's great.
It was great.
That must be exciting.
From How to Succeed, which was this great bubble of a comedy,
to like actual having to act.
Yeah.
And you feel like you got it.
Well.
But you must have a method.
I memorize everybody's lines.
That's the only method that I know I have.
And I don't do it on purpose. I just know everybody's lines. That's the only thing I know I have. And I don't do it on purpose.
I just know everybody's lines.
Yeah.
And no, I don't, you know, I really don't.
I don't say it humbly.
I show up.
I learn the lines.
I can find.
I just figure, you know, Michael Shannon.
Michael Shannon said this.
Yeah.
When he was talking to you, I think.
Yeah.
That's where I heard it.
That, you know, everybody in a scene, you want something.
What do you want in the scene? So then you try to get it. Right. That's all there is heard it. That, you know, everybody in a scene, you want something. What do you want in the scene?
So then you try to get it.
Right.
That's all there is to it.
Yeah.
You know, what do you want?
Yeah.
And if I figure that out, any scene can be, no matter what else is going on, I really
want to get out of here so that it, you know, informs everything else you do.
Right.
There's a great story about that with Uta Hagen, great actress, great teacher.
Had this scene on stage where she was going around a room.
She had to dust.
She had to put papers away.
She had to open the fridge.
She had to get tea, whatever she was doing.
Like 18 different things she had to do.
Did it.
And then the director said, that's great, Uta.
Do it again.
Let's do it a little faster.
And so she did it a little faster.
Yeah.
And some actor who was with her afterwards said,
how could you take a direction like that without any motivation without?
Just faster. She said well, I just decided that
In addition to everything else I had to catch a train. Well, she just figured out how how do I do it faster with an actual?
Object in mind, you know, yeah. Well, that's a good that's a good pointer
I mean, I've heard that before but like if, a lot of times I just work on instinct,
but you actually say to yourself, what do I want here?
Occasionally.
Yeah.
Sometimes.
It's pretty clear.
What did Jason Robards, again, I quote people because I have no original thought myself,
but Jason Robards once said, if it's not on the page, it's not on the stage.
That's right.
So it should be, if it's not in the body of the scene, if a director has to tell you what
the scene is about, maybe you should think about rewriting this.
Right.
Because if it's not there, if it's not clear to the audience for me from my actions and my words they're not
going to understand what's going on in my head sure right so i think that it's pretty most of
the time it's pretty unless it's abstract and surreal right and then it's it doesn't mean what
it means it means something else then you're off the hook a little yes so tell me about the new
series because i haven't seen it.
And it seems interesting.
The librarians?
Yeah, it's sort of, I describe it as a cross between Harry Potter and Indiana Jones.
Okay.
You know, it's magic and adventure.
And why the title librarians?
Because the people that are sort of the watchers of life and protectors of the realm, as it were.
Yeah.
They're considered librarians.
There is this enormous library that is both real and-
Real book guy.
Not real.
Right.
Indeed.
But it's not just books.
Sure.
It's magical artifacts.
Everything.
And the job is to keep the magic guitar away from bad guys.
Right.
To keep the Ark of the Covenant.
Sure.
The Spear of Destiny.
You don't want these getting in the wrong hands.
No. That's exactly right. And every week somebody tries to arc of the covenant. Sure. The spear of destiny. Don't want these getting in the wrong hands. No, that's exactly right.
And every week somebody tries to get them from us.
Right.
Or we discover one that we didn't know existed and we've got to go get it from the bad guys.
Noah Wiley did a series of three television movies based on this premise as the librarians
created by John Rogers.
And they did three movies like 10 years ago.
Jonathan Frakes, Dean Devlin now is the executive producer.
Yeah.
Oh, was then as well.
Yeah.
And basically how I got the part was that
the character was sort of fulfilled by Bob Newhart in the movies,
but Bob decided he didn't really want to work so much anymore,
and so they needed another guy, and they asked me.
And you were like, okay.
I'm not a librarian.
My character Jenkins is not a librarian.
He's the caretaker.
And so he just sort of makes sure
that everybody else has what they need
in order to go do their jobs,
but he also happens to be immortal.
Yeah.
And so he has a lot of history.
It's called baggage.
That's,
from the beginning of time.
From the beginning.
He was Galahad.
We find that out.
He was Galahad in the round table.
Are you having fun?
Yes.
Yeah.
I like working.
And it films in Oregon.
And our daughter happens to live up in the Pacific Northwest.
So three months, four months of the year so far.
We've done it for three seasons.
Up by Portland-ish?
Yeah.
Around there.
Elizabeth and I get to go up there and spend time with our daughter, Lisa.
And work.
And work.
And make some money.
I mean, it's...
I like it up there.
I like the Pacific Northwest in general.
I do too.
I just like the weight of the atmosphere up there.
Yeah.
You know, you can really feel it.
And the trees get real big.
Oh, they're so green.
I mean, obviously, it's like living in a terrarium.
Yeah, and the coastline
and all those islands and things.
I'd fucking love it.
When we first started thinking
about leaving California
in the, I guess,
the mid-80s,
mid to late 80s,
we explored that area
a lot up there.
Yeah.
It was just a little too,
the places that I wanted to
were a little too remote,
like Orcas Island.
Sure.
How am I going to get to Burbank from here?
You know, when it's raining.
You have to learn how to fly.
Yeah, but those days, you know,
you get on a private plane to SeaTac,
but then if it's really socked in,
you go, we can do it, right?
You've got instrument training.
Let's just go.
And then you wind up scraping me off Rainier
with a spatula.
You know, I didn't want to do that.
So we chose a little closer place,
but it's gorgeous up there, and I like it up there there are you still thinking about getting out yes actually yeah yeah we've
lived uh i've been back here for about 10 years um from where we're from idaho we had moved to
sun valley idaho for a long time oh really built a house there and that must have been nice our
youngest son went to middle and middle school and most of high school there and was that nice it was very nice yeah it was very nice and now you're thinking
about getting out again yes oh good yeah um you know when you think about it i mean i'm la since
1973 i mean it's a long bloody time it's not my hometown yeah it has been extremely advantageous
for me to be here yeah work-wise yeah you Yeah. You know, my family is from here.
Both, all my children were born here.
Lisa and both Jonathan and Benjamin were, you know, they're Angelenos by birth.
But you come here to work.
I mean, that's a weird thing about it.
That's how I like it.
That's how I would like it.
I think more than.
I think about that all the time.
Than it's been.
Like if I had a choice, you know, if what we do or what you do wasn't here, you know, would you come here?
I don't know.
That's a really good question.
Because, I mean, that's what, like, I sort of answered it for myself.
It's good enough, but there's a lot of things that, you know, drive me crazy.
And there's a lot of things, I don't know.
You just start thinking, like like i want some space you know
and people always think southern california is gorgeous i guess it is if they they don't have
to drive here that's very true but like you know i i work here and i've built a world for myself
but you get to a certain point where it's sort of like all right it's a lot of other places there
are yeah the and the and the lesson for that with me is even looking back 30 30 years
ago with my wife and i whenever we would have a little cash or a little free time yeah we'd be in
the car and we'd be heading north right even if it was just as far as cambria we would head out of la
yeah uh get on the 101 and once you passed agura in those days anyway you felt like i'm out of la
yeah so there was something about LA that I wanted to leave
and so did Elizabeth.
Yeah.
Again, just to be able to do that.
Right, yeah, exactly.
And in the 70s, LA wasn't nearly as constipated as it is now.
Sure, sure.
When I lived in San Diego, when we were doing this album,
I would travel to-
The Hippopotamus album?
Yes.
There's the White Album and the Hippopotamus album.
Sort of in the same breath.
I would travel up here to the mastering facility at Artisan or somewhere like on Coanga.
And I would leave San Diego.
I'd be up here in an hour and 10 minutes.
Just head up the five.
You know, pass Pendleton and zoom in.
Yeah.
No more.
Listen.
Coke was a nickel when I was a boy. Yeah.'s just old it's i'm old uh-huh i'm actually old now yeah i think i'm
actually no no the city has gotten congested and i imagine coke was not a nickel but you know it
was no what what was it i don't remember it used to be about when i did it was like 100 bucks a
gram yeah that's about right yeah like 60 and then there was always a guy they would it all depends on how much baby
laxative they put in you know or hey if you get an eight ball then it's cheap i ever had that money
i didn't have enough for that well it was all it was there was definitely a big price break between
buying the gram buying the eight ball but i never wanted to commit to an eight ball i gotta say that
i mean not that i i talk about this a lot but a coker is
really a a vehicle with which i could drink longer oh yeah that was it more was about that yeah i i
you know i liked coke for about an hour and then yeah you could you had to drink just to keep the
balance yeah yeah well we're good now how long you got 35 wow Twice as much as me. I got 17 and change.
You started later.
That's all.
Yeah, yeah.
You're what?
20 years younger than me.
53.
I'm 53.
Yeah.
I'm 69.
Really?
You look great, man.
Oh, thanks.
You're holding up.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank God this is radio.
Yeah.
It's good to talk to you.
Good to talk to you, Mark.
That's it.
That's our show. That's me and John. me and john larriquette i appreciate him coming
down uh please go to wtfpod.com for all your wtf pod needs i i my finger is still a little
delicate a little uh sensitive but i'm gonna try to play guitar because i know so many of
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